Included in a list compiled by Entertainment Weekly (November
25, 2005) was the year the movie was first released, length of film,
rating, film studio, and commentary on topics including: Here's Why,
Did You Know?, Extras (on DVD), and Final Score.

3. Hoosiers (1986)
"...the greatest basketball movie ever made...based on the true
story of a tiny Indiana high school team that won the state championship...supremely
acted...and beautifully shot, and features a Jerry Goldsmith score."

4. Rocky (1976)
"With one shot to prove he's not just another bum from the hood,
Sylvester Stallone faces the champ and does the unthinkable, by Hollywood
standards: He loses. But he wins our hearts by going the distance."

6. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
"We're all gonna cry at the heart-wrenching ending, after we've cheered
the hard-knuckled determination of Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), left-hooking
her way to self-respect as she climbs the ranks of women's boxing."

7. Breaking Away (1979)
"Dave Stoller's (Dennis Christopher) a teen local in a university
town, pretending to be Italian like his ten-speed idols - The rivalry
between Stoller and his "cutter" buddies (Dennis Quaid,
Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earle Haley) and Indiana U's snotty frat
boys for the Little 500 trophy drives the plot."

8. The Bad News Bears (1976)
"Walter Matthau's cruddy alky of a manager and his ragtag band of
'Jews, spics, niggers, pansies, and a booger-eatin' moron' knock the snot
out of sacred cows like Little League, political correctness, and, of
course, the Yankees."

9. Friday Night Lights (2004)
"Lights captures the immense pressures placed on the real-life
athletes of Odessa, Tex., where 'Mojo' football is a way of life. Billy
Bob Thornton fully inhabits the role of the conflicted coach, but his
players provide the real heroics."

10. Slap Shot (1977)
"...the Paul Newman comedy manages to be outrageously funny while
slyly satirizing the love of brutality and win-at-all costs attitude of
professional sports. Slap Shot's inspiration was the 1974 Johnstown
Jets, whose players included all three Hansons from the movie."
11. The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
"...it faithfully retells the gut-wrenching story of baseball great
Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper) and how his love affairs with the game and wife
Eleanor (Teresa Wright) were tragically cut short by ALS...'I consider
myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth' is among the most heartbreaking
lines in movie - and real-life sports - history."

13. The Set-Up (1949)
"Robert Wise's down-beat take on boxing...Robert Ryan plays such
a loser of a 35-year-old pugilist, his crooked manager doesn't bother
telling him he's supposed to throw the fight...The picture takes place
in riveting real-time, including the 18-minute fight."

14. North Dallas Forty (1979)
"...this adaptation of Dallas Cowboy Peter Gent's roman a clef...it's
a period piece, with its disco parties and abundance of white linebackers,
but its cynicism, that profit trumps fun and skill, hasn't aged."

15. Eight Men Out (1988)
"'Shoeless' Joe Jackson and seven Chicago White Sox teammates gained
infamy for conspiring with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series. John
Sayles assembled a stellar, eclectic cast..."

17. Field of Dreams
(1989)"...this nostalgic love letter to our national pastime captures
perfectly the game's intangibles - the thwack of a fist to the glove,
the shock of a fastball high and tight...there's that line: 'Hey, dad?
Wanna have a catch?' Talk about your fantasy baseball."

18. White Men Can't Jump (1992)
"Director Ron Shelton's biggest box office hit plainly articulates
the irony that lurks in his other sweaty works: 'Sometimes when you win,
you really lose. And sometimes when you lose, you really win.'"

19. Fat City (1972)
"John Huston's skid-row saga about a washed-up alcoholic boxer
(a never-better Stacy Keach) and a promising young amateur (a 22-year-old
Jeff Bridges) is all about the pugs who never make it out of the spit-bucket
world of musty gyms...it's about the flip side of the American Dream."

20. Heaven Can Wait (1978)
"...the wry supernatural romance about a mistakenly deceased Los
Angeles Ram determined to play in the Super Bowl. The gridiron climax
looks and feels real - from the Rams' opponent, the Pittsburgh Steelers,
to the postgame interview by NBC's Dick Enberg."

21. The Rookie (2002)
"...the apple-in-the-throat yarn about Jim Morris (Dennis Quaid),
a real-life high school baseball coach and ex-pitcher whose arm gave out
just as he was about to turn pro...Morris makes it to the Show and
resolves his daddy issues with coldhearted pop Brian Cox."

23. The Freshman (1925)
"...the first great sports comedy. As Harold 'Speedy' Lamb, Tate
U's resident 'college boob', (Harold) Lloyd is hilarious and heartwarming
in his quest for acceptance on campus and on the football field. His gags
in the 'Big Game' ... have been aped for 80 years."

24. Rocky III (1982)
"it perfected the formula...Rocky III's true gift to sports cinema
is the anatomically fetishized, borderline homoerotic training sequence.
That, and 'Eye of the Tiger'...Twenty notches below the first Rocky
on our list, but the most fun installment in the whole series."

26. Love & Basketball (2000)
"...this Spike Lee-produced pic succeeds in part because it's about
basketball players - who just happen to be female. They sweat, they lift
weights, they talk trash. Monica (Sanaa Lathan) is a headstrong tomboy
who intends to be the first girl in the NBA. Neighbor Quincy (Omar Epps)
is the son of a pro player with the skills to go all the way...their relationship
grows over time from awkward smooches to a sensual game of one-on-one."

27. Better Off Dead (1985)"...features a Japanese drag-racing Howard Cosell impersonator,
a big wet smooch at Dodger Stadium's home plate, and a climactic ski race...this
underrated teen gem also shares the most basic of sports film themes -
it's all about the underdog."

28. Tin Cup (1996)
"The second Ron Shelton-Kevin Costner collaboration, this story of
a washed-up West Texas golf pro's improbably journey to the final round
of the U.S. Open reveals the driving philosophy at the heart of golf:
Humans are fallible, perfection is unattainable..., but there is immortality
to be bound in a single sweetly hit ball."

29. The Longest Yard (1974)
"...(a) Burt Reynolds' prison football pic...Reynolds shines as disgraced
QB Paul Crewe, who reluctantly cobbles together fellow convicts to take
on the guards' semipro team. Director Robert Aldrich was among the first
to capture the sport's speed and violence up close..."

30. Bend It Like Beckham (2002, UK)
"In Gurinder Chadha's cross-cultural comedy, the heroine is a London-bred
Punjabi teen (Parminder Nagra) with a passion for 'football' and a bedroom
shrine to U.K. superstar midfielder David Beckham."

30 Best Sports Movies of All Time

This list was compiled by Rolling Stone in
August, 2010.

1. Hoop Dreams (1994)"...a three-hour odyssey about high school kids William Gates
and Arthur Agee as they try to make their way to the NBA. A landmark
American documentary, this compassionate labor of love..."

2. Rocky
(1976)"...a surprisingly lived-in, sensitive drama
about a broken-down boxer who gets one last, very unlikely chance
to prove himself against the World Heavyweight Champion..."

3. The Bad News Bears (1976)"...so timeless — even
if the sight of Walter Matthau playing a beer-guzzling single
guy overseeing latchkey children screams 'Yes, this most
definitely is the 1970s.' Writer Bill Lancaster and director
Michael Ritchie capture the pressure grown-ups put on pre-teens
who have more on their minds than sports."

4. Raging
Bull (1980)
"...a brutal, unromantic portrait of the sport
and the film's real-life protagonist — the
charmless but utterly compelling Jake LaMotta (Robert
De Niro)...Less a biopic than a psychological study of
what it takes to get in the ring (and what happens when
you take that killer instinct home with you)."

5. Caddyshack (1980)"...eminently quotable
and supremely rewatchable, Caddyshack has
earned a sizable cult following since arriving in
theaters in the summer of 1980, and it's easy to see
why..."

6. Bull Durham (1988)"A tribute to those
whose love for the game needs no limelight, Bull Durham is
at once a breezy romance, a knowing look at the
less-glamorous aspects of America's pastime, and
a story about how the compromises of aging aren't
just unavoidable — they're
far preferable to clinging to the past."

7. Slap Shot (1977)"...this spirited,
profane tribute to sports' lost causes and
those who see them through to the end. Paul
Newman stars as a player/coach who resorts
to questionable, often violent, tactics to
boost the profits of the Charlestown Chiefs,
the local heroes of a failing steel-mill town."

8. When We Were Kings (1996)"...Oscar-winning documentary is pretty much
the definitive last word on the legendary bout, complete with talking-head
testimonies from Norman Mailer and George Plimpton, training clips and
footage of the moment the Greatest takes back the belt (from George Forman
in the "Rumble in the Jungle" fight)."

9. Senna (2010)"Brazil's
Ayrton Senna became a national hero
and the photogenic face of the Formula
One circuit in the Eighties and Nineties
before an accident at the San Marino
Grand Prix in 1994 ended his life..."

10. Friday Night Lights (2004)"...
balancing documentary-inspired
handheld camerawork against the
soaring emotions of the players'
lives both off and on the field,
then grounding the entire affair
via a rock-solid performance from
Billy Bob Thornton as a deeply
invested coach."

12. The Pride of the Yankees (1942)"Like most sports biopics of the time,
this retelling about Gehrig's life, career and ultimate demise
from ALS (a disease that's synonymous with his name) is shamelessly
sentimental, incredibly inspiring and focuses just as much on mythologizing
the man as it does the game."

13. Hoosiers (1986)"... this dizzyingly feel-good sports movie
in which a troubled coach (Gene Hackman) motivates a group of underdog
1950s Indiana high schoolers to play the best basketball of their lives
by — wait for it — sticking
to the fundamentals."

14. Murderball (2005)"...what makes Murderball – so named for the brutal sport
of wheelchair rugby it focuses on ­– such a great
film is that it skips all the gooey, inspirational bulls--t,
instead chronicling the burgeoning, bloody rivalry between
the U.S. and Canadian teams."

15. Fat City (1972)"...John Huston's fatalistic film about the
relationship between the down-and-out alcoholic boxer Billy (Stacy Keach)
and Ernie, the young-up-and-comer (Jeff Bridges) who inspires the older
fighter to try for a comeback. It’s a boxing
movie more concerned with between-bouts trials and
traps than what goes on in the ring."

16. The Endless Summer (1966)"The greatest surfing
picture of all time, this unassuming piece of counterculture
anthropology is so likable that it had kids around
the world buying boards and heading to the California
coast in search of the perfect barrel."

17. North Dallas Forty (1979) "Set among the players and management of a team semi-loosely
modeled after the Dallas Cowboys, Ted Kotcheff's down-and-dirty sports
drama does double duty as a broad satire as it delves into the corrupt
underbelly of professional football – the drugs, the sex, the
backstabbing, and the bureaucratic incompetence..."

18. The Wrestler (2008) "...Mickey Rourke’s Randy "The Ram" Robinson:
an ex-superstar who gets beat to hell whenever he entertains. Director
Darren Aronofsky's film lingers over the sport's lurid details (performers
using blades to make their shows more visceral), and contrasts the
Ram's colorful costumes with the bleak existence of his life offstage..."

19. The Natural (1984) "...in this loose adaptation of Bernard Malamud's
novel. Robert Redford plays the once-promising phenom Roy Hobbs, who,
in his mid 30s, finally gets his shot at the big leagues after disappearing
from the scene for mysterious reasons..."

20. The Big Lebowski (1998)"Joel and Ethan Coen's Raymond Chandler-inspired
shaggy dog story is, among its other qualities, a great bowling
movie...The Big Lebowski captures
how much of the experience of chucking a heavy ball down a lane
depends on a number of factors: alley ambience, team camaraderie,
between-frames taunts, and fetishistic equipment maintenance."

21. Victory (1981)"Based on the Hungarian film Two Half
Times in Hell, director John Huston's
potboiler stars Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone, and Brazilian
superstar Pele as WWII POWs who're going to use a match against
the Germans as an opportunity to escape..."

22.
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor
Kings (1976)"Co-produced by Motown honcho
Berry Gordy and directed by a pre-Saturday
Night Fever John Badham, this period baseball comedy
recalls the age of barnstorming, when pro athletes supplemented
their income by traveling the country to play against
rubes..."

23. Bend It Like Beckham (2002, UK)"...Gurinder Chadha's
follow-your-dreams fable wouldn't work half as well if
weren't for future ER star
Parminder Nagra's winning performance and a real knack
for nailing how sports can boost the self-esteem and
self-identity of young women."

24. Any Given Sunday (1999)"... this look at a turbulent season in the
life of a struggling Miami football franchise...That collective sense
of anxiety and hopelessness is just one of the reasons why Pacino's climactic "Life's
just a game of inches" speech to his troops
has earned its place as one of the all-time greatest
sports movie speeches."

25. Blue Chips (1994)"Basketball-fanatic director William Friedkin
populated screenwriter Ron Shelton's story of college hoops corruption
with the likes of Larry Bird, Bob Knight, Dick Vitale, Bob Cousy, and
Shaquille O’Neal — some as themselves,
and others as characters from a fictional west
coast university..."

26. Rudy (1993)"...you've
got a story about a hard-working, huge-hearted
hero overcomes all obstacles (dyslexia, diminutive
size, coach Dan Devine) to get his shot in
the final home game of the 1975 season..."

27. Chariots of Fire (1981, UK)"It's remembered today primarily for its pulsing
Vangelis synthesizer score and that shot of Olympians running along a
beach in slow-motion — but
director Hugh Hudson's Oscar-winning
sports drama is anything but an easy
callback punchline..."

28. Miracle (2004) "...one of the finest attributes of Gavin O'Connor's
tribute to gruff coach Herb Brooks is that it never stops reminding
us that the man who led the underdog U.S. hockey team to an unlikely
gold medal was no touchy-feely, heart-tugging dude."

29. Tin Cup (1996)"Kevin Costner reunited with his Bull Durham writer-director
Ron Shelton for this golf-themed rom-com, playing Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy,
a burned out ex-pro who tries to win the heart of a woman (Rene Russo)
by out-shooting her boyfriend (Don Johnson) at the U.S. Open..."

30. No No: A Dockumentary (2014)"Dock Ellis is most famous for claiming that he once pitched
a no-hitter while tripping on LSD, but as Jeff Radice's "dockumentary" makes
clear, the Pirates hurler had a fairly distinguished career, intersecting
with one of baseball's wildest decades..."